Creator Fund, an early-stage VC fund investing in DeepTech emerging from universities, has announced a new £15 million fund, its second in the UK.
Larger than the first, it will invest in scientific minds across the UK and help them scale businesses.
It backs PhD, academic and student talent building frontier technology startups in areas such as AI and life sciences to robotics and quantum computing.
Creator Fund also has closed a smaller European fund dedicated to angel investments in universities across Europe. It claims to be the first to pioneer in Europe the Silicon Valley-style model of investing in students.
Its unique model has seen the fund train 80 students at 28 different universities to source and analyse startups on the ground.
These ‘student investors’ go on to work at top tier funds when they graduate, and strengthen the power of the Creator Fund network.
“There is a transformation happening at European universities, as the world’s best talent is deciding to pursue entrepreneurship,” said Jamie Macfarlane, founder and CEO.
“The R&D and technology emerging from our labs and classrooms has the potential to fundamentally change and improve the way we live and work. Our primary goal at Creator Fund is to be there early on, helping truly innovative PhD students build tech businesses based on scientific discovery or engineering innovation.
“Second to that is the training of a diverse range of the next generation of investors. In the last two years I am proud to watch our portfolio companies thrive and our student investors become part of Europe’s best VCs and join our companies.”
Creator Fund’s 16 investments to date include frontier technologies that develop mutation-proof vaccines, electronic skin for robots, brainwave-reading software to control machines and self-flying drones.